CAIRO,
August 14 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Martyr bombings are
"the sole means of struggle which the Palestinians have in current
circumstances" and should not be condemned, the grand Mufti of
Egypt, Sheikh Mohammed Ahmed al-Tayeb, said Wednesday, August 14.
"We
have a strong [Israeli] army and a very weak people, and this people has
not found another means of defending itself ... thus we should not say
that it should not be done," Egypt’s leading Muslim scholar told
Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The
Islamic resistance group Hamas on Tuesday, August 13, answered
Israel’s decision to deport families of Palestinian resistance
activists by refusing to put an end to retaliatory attacks inside
Israel, vowing to pursue its resistance to the Israeli occupation by all
possible means, including martyr bombings.
Islamic
Jihad echoed Hamas’s rejection of truce, vowing, too, to carry on with
all forms of resistance.
Palestinian
officials had earlier said Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups
would sign up to a proposal to end martyr operations inside Israel in a
bid to return to peace talks.
"Islam
bans fighting civilians, women, children, but on condition that there
are two armies present," but this is not the case in the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said Egypt’s Mufti, an appointee of
President Hosni Mubarak.
"If
the Palestinian people had an army, than these attacks would be
forbidden," he added.
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The
Israeli army destroyed Wednesday two more Palestinian houses in
Tubas, south of Jenin
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"On
the other hand, people who kill themselves cannot make the distinction
between civilians and military personnel," he said in an interview
in his office in the world’s leading Islamic University of Al-Azhar,
where he teaches philosophy.
"Israel
should stop shedding the blood of Palestinian children," he added,
in a clear reference to the Palestinian martyr bombings being a reaction
to Israeli atrocities against the Palestinian civilian population.
Asked
about an expected U.S. attack on Iraq, the 57-year old Grand Mufti said
it would "accomplish nothing, and will only increase hostility
against Americans."
The
Egyptian government has many times declared its opposition to an attack
on Iraq, which it says would destabilize the entire region, AFP
reported.
The
Grand Mufti also declared his support for a boycott of U.S. products in
the case of an attack on Iraq, which Washington insists on accusing of
developing weapons of mass destruction.
"If
the Americans attack, then we should not accept their products, and
boycott them," he said, speaking both in Arabic and French, a
language which he studied at the Sorbonne.
A
campaign boycotting Israeli and U.S. products was launched in Egypt
after the second Palestinian Intifada against Israeli occupation broke
out in September 2000.
On
the ground in the occupied territories, meanwhile, the Israeli
occupation army destroyed Wednesday two more Palestinian houses in the
autonomous northern West Bank town of Tubas, south of Jenin, Palestinian
security sources said.
The
houses of Mohammad and Tayseer Abu-Mohsen were destroyed by Israeli tank
shelling and bulldozers, in an aggression that left one Palestinian
injured, the sources added.
The
army confirmed an operation in Tubas was ongoing, but did not elaborate.
Since
it reoccupied most of the West Bank two months ago, the army has
relentlessly raided towns and villages, while continuing its policies of
abducting Palestinians and demolishing homes.
Since
the Israeli cabinet approved an aggressive policy of demolitions,
killings and abductions against families of resistance activists, a
policy slammed by rights groups as collective punishment, the occupation
army has destroyed at least 21 houses, according to an AFP figure.
In
Al-Khalil (Hebron), the Israeli army forced Wednesday a Palestinian
family out of their apartment and then turned it into a military
position, an AFP journalist at the scene said.
The
apartment on the top floor of a four-storey building was inhabited by 11
members of Tawfiq Tukamani's family, who moved in with other relatives
after being forced out of their house.
Two
Israeli armored troop carriers took up positions near the house and
closed off the sector to traffic, while soldiers took up positions on
the roof.
The
house is in the Ein Fara neighborhood and close to Hebron university.
The Israeli army declined to give any immediate comment on the
operation.
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In
Al-Khalil (Hebron), the Israeli army forced Wednesday the
Tukamani family out of their apartment and then turned it into a
military position
|
On
the diplomatic level, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan's special envoy
on humanitarian issues met Wednesday in Ramallah with Palestinian
President Yasser Arafat in his battered West Bank headquarters, AFP
reported.
Catherine
Bertini and the Palestinian leader discussed the deepening humanitarian
crisis in the West Bank, which has been reoccupied for nearly two
months, and the Gaza Strip.
Top
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP that Arafat briefed the U.N.
envoy on "the situation in the territories and the continuous
Israeli aggression in Palestinian villages, cities and camps."
"The
world should understand that the human disaster the Palestinians are
suffering from now is not the result of an earthquake but of Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's policies," Erakat said.
In
April, U.N. Middle East coordinator Terje Roed Larsen described the
Israeli devastation of the West Bank Jenin refugee camp as
"horrific beyond belief", comparing it to the scene of an
earthquake.
Bertini
was sent to the conflict-torn region "to assess the nature and the
scale of the humanitarian crisis and to review humanitarian needs in the
light of recent developments," a statement from Annan's office said
last week.
Bertini
met over the weekend with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who is
expected to hold talks with a Palestinian delegation headed by Erakat
later Wednesday.
A
report commissioned by the U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID) and published August 5 revealed that more than one in every five
Palestinian children, 22.5 percent of them, suffer from malnutrition,
AFP said.
